Chapter 160

Kara lands back where she was keeping watch and begins scanning faces again. It took her hours to find the first face, which hopefully means that the guards have been doing well and finding a lot of them. But now, she has scanned six faces and has already found one. Noting where the person is, she continues scanning and it takes her a couple seconds to find another. And another. And another.

Kara lets out a slew of Kryptonese curses under her breath and makes the warning sound, which happens to be that of a common bird that should be overlooked by everyone but those that are listening for it. It isn't one found in National City, as they're noisy and messy and tend to be killed by annoyed guards or citizens. She sees a few people in plainclothes below twitch at the sound, their hands moving towards where their weapons should be before they try to act natural.

Like they expected, Kara didn't see the people in her alleyway, but instead saw them in the plaza. Kara had already scanned all the faces in her alleyway, and none new and shady had appeared, so she had been helping look into the more massive crowd.

Kara rescans all the faces in her alleyway, ensuring that none of them are the people they're looking for. By some luck, they were right and there's no one but regular citizens here. She flies over to a nearby roof where some of the archers are stationed and keeps an eye on the town square.

A few minutes pass, and a few guards manage to find some of the Cadmus sympathizers and quietly escort them towards the DEO. Then all hell breaks loose.

An alien that had been traveling with one of the sympathizers gets prodded by the person with something that doesn't look pleasant, and then the alien lets out a loud screech. Everyone on the ground and on the rooftops crouches down like they're trying to get away from the abrupt ear-splittingly shrill noise. Kara grits her teeth and fights the urge to close her eyes, her head already pulsing with a headache.

The screech stops and the nearby guards, the ones not in plainclothes, begin to move towards the alien with their weapons drawn. The alien looks terrified and glances at the person standing next to him, who seems unfazed both by the noise and by the guards approaching them. People around them, still recovering from the shock and the noise, begin backing away from them, unsure whether the guards have it handled or if they should flee.

One of the nearby citizens lets out a startlingly low growl and then roars, their body seeming to split as a large alien takes its place. Kara notes with relief that it doesn't match the description of White Martians that J'onn has given them in the past, but it still looks very much dangerous.

At the appearance of this creature, people begin realizing that perhaps the best plan of action is to get out of there. Especially once the alien roars again and smashes his giant fists down onto a nearby market stand. The grin on his face lets Kara know that he isn't doing this because he's afraid like the others she's seen. He likes this.

The spotters and archers get ready and Kara leaps down from her perch on the roof, catching one giant hand with her own laughably smaller ones right before the alien hits a terrified citizen. Kara can feel her muscles strain as the alien pushes harder against her grasp while the person flees.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see people fleeing and the guards in plainclothes pulling out their weapons and approaching the Cadmus sympathizers and the aliens taking mostly half-hearted swings at people as they flee. They do hit people, but even from Kara's brief glance she can see that they're not doing nearly as much damage as they could have if they wanted to be doing this.

Kara refocuses on the alien in front of her in just enough time to put one of her hands up to catch his other hand as he tries to slam it down on her. With her hands each trying to stop his, she can tell that she isn't going to beat him if she just focuses on strength. She needs her speed, needs to be clever. With her superspeed, she pulls back. Without resistance to his pushing, his giant hands slam into each other with a painful sounding thud. He grins at her, yellow fangs glistening with spit. He doesn't seem fazed by the damage his own strength had done at all.

Kara watches him closely and gets into a defensive stance that Alex had taught her. He takes in a deep breath and then exhales out a noxious looking green gas. Kara may not be an expert on alien toxins, but she knows poisonous gas when she sees it. Kara uses her superspeed again to run around the gas, creating a small whirlwind that disperses it.

One hand reaches out as she's beginning to slow down after it seems safe, grabbing her by her head and throwing her towards a nearby building. Kara catches herself midair and launches herself towards the alien, her fists in front of her in her cousin's famous flying position. She slams into its chest, and she can hear something crack as air forces its way from his body, a little bit of green gas coming out, but not enough to worry her. The force slams him into the ground, cracking the cobblestone beneath. He bats at her to get her off of him, but it lacks the strength he had used before.

She dodges his swing easily and punches him in his boney jaw hard, his eyes rolling back in his head as he slumps, unconscious.

That was easier than she had expected, and she quickly hands him off to some guards who can drag him to the DEO before rejoining the fray, arrows raining down from above.

Next chapter, more of the battle! Hopefully it's good? After that is the wedding, some supercorp smut, and then probably the end! And then, of course, the prompt book! Thank you all for reading and for your lovely comments! Stay awesome!